Programs are normally associated with licenses, typically in the form of a license number or key, the intention being that the program cannot run without a license number which is entered by a user at installation of the program. Similarly multimedia discs or similar items may include a license number to distinguish the individual copy, which is intended to be played by only one person.
The intention is to control the number of unauthorized copies of the program or multimedia disk or file in use; however such a system does not prevent repeated installations of the program with the same license number or of copies of the same multimedia disc or file on different computers.
Methods of controlling the installation of unauthorized copies of the licenses of programs on computers or similar items such as routers and switches are known. These normally operate by detecting the initialization of computers on a network and validating the use of a license on that computer against a central list of licenses.
Such a system will not work where there is no central server monitoring or dispensing the licenses, for instance in an ad-hoc wireless network.
The present invention provides a solution to this and other problems which offers advantages over the prior art or which will at least provide the public with a useful choice.